Temporal studies were performed both to understand spatiotemporal characteristics of signal in fMRI images and to examine temporal evolution of neuronal processing. In a time-resolved study of the visual system, the nature of the spatiotemporal characteristics of functional magnetic resonance imaging was examined using sophisticated mathematical tools. This study revealed a rich spatiotemporal structure in the stimulus related changes even for a very simple visual stimulation protocol, suggesting that distinct structures respond differently to the stimulus. In addition to revealing the temporal characteristics, this work also presented a number of novel mathematical approaches for processing the data, including a novel approach for removing gross motion artifact.